For quite a while now (ok, since about a week after I got my Weber Silver (WS) bbq), I’ve been acquiring accessories. First was the rotisserie. Then the charcoal holders, then the Smokenator, then the Pizza Oven, then the hinged grates, then the IQ110 temperature controller, then the remote dual thermometers. Sheesh, it seemed like the draining from my wallet would NEVER end!

All these accessories, while really nice, didn’t address my main complaint about the WS. It only has 363 sq. in. of cooking surface. Put on a slab of ribs cut in half and you’ve pretty much filled up the cooking area. NOTE: I prefer either St. Louis style or flat ribs, not those wimpy baby back ribs.

See?

Now at our house, we’re not exactly a 1 meat per cookout household. If I’m gonna do some decent bbq, I want at LEAST 2 kinds of meat. Ribs and chicken, chicken and pork chops, chicken and steak, brisket and ribs, hot dogs and burgers and chicken…..you get the idea. Sooo, I bought a second WS. Great! Now I’m up to 726 sq. in.! Hooray! Now I can do a slab of ribs and a split chicken. Or a small brisket (REAL small brisket) and a slab of ribs. Or a split chicken (split in half) and a small brisket. Whooppee!!

Well, not exactly big whooppee, though. What if I want to invite our friends who have 4 kids plus the parents? Yeah, I can cook in 2 batches. Burgers and hot dogs for the kids first, followed by the “real” bbq for the grownups. Only thing is,the kids usually really like my ribs, too. And I cook the burgers and hot dogs high and fast, but everything else low and slow, so I’ve got to let the grill cool waaayyyy down. What to do, what to do, what to DOOOO?????

After looking around, I found a cool accessory named the Rib-O-Lator that consists of 4 pans that attach to the rotisserie and go round and round ferris wheel style, cooking like the bbq joints cookers. Excellent idea! But, after reading a lot of reviews for it, it seems like unless you have the thing adjusted juuuuuuuuust right, it’ll flip your food out onto the coals. BUMMER! (Yeah, I grew up in the 60s and 70s with the hippies! LOL) Plus I’d need to get another rotisserie. Plus 2 sets of the pans (which are $100/set + shipping). I don’t think so!!

There’s another accessory that sits on top of the regular grill and is basically another complete grill rack. It gives an extra 247 sq in. cooking surface, for a total of 550 sq. in cooking surface. Now we’re getting somewhere! Only problem is, it’s almost $38 with shipping included. YIKES! Two of them, one for each of my WS grills comes to $76! OUCH! Plus, it only sits 2″ above the regular grill. You ever measured how thick a piece of brisket is? Or a half chicken? 2 inches? Heck, that’s nowhere near enough height to let smoke circulate!

OK, I looked around my bbq extra goodies and I had 2 old round charcoal holders from my old keg grill that were 19″ in diameter, but a bit rusty. That works out to 254 sq in each. Hmmmmmmm, they’re 19″, the WS is 22.5″, so they do indeedy fit on top of the regular grill with a bit left over. OK, but how to get them to fit on top, a minimum of 3″ above the grill? After looking around online, I saw several folks who had welded legs onto a similar grill and were using that. Outstanding idea! Only problem: I don’t have a welder. Drat!

I considered several possibilities. Bending some wire to hold it up. Flimsy, would probably fall over and dump my food Buying a little welder. More expensive than buying the HoverGrills. Using pieces of brick? Hmmm, not too bad an idea, but they’re only 2″ high. OK, 2 would give me the 4″ height I’m looking for. But I only have whole bricks. I’m not really good at splitting bricks evenly, so that was out. What to do, what to do, what to DO??

I mentioned what I was thinking to Sweetie late this morning. She thought for about 30 seconds and said “Why not use some long bolts?” BINGO!! 4 1/2″ carriage bolts, some 1 1/4″ washers, a few nuts. WOOHOO!! Sweetie’s absolutely BRILLIANT!

I got out the dremel tool and sanded off the grill and got it nice and shiny. Then I took a bolt, screwed a nut on all the way to the head, added 2 washers, another nut screwed almost to the washers, then I separated the washers, put one on the top of the grill, one on the bottom of the grill then screwed the bottom nut down, sandwiching the grill grate wires between the washers. I squoze the wires together a little to make a better fit between the washers. I did that 4 times, once at each “corner” and once again in the middle. After all, we don’t need the top grill to sag onto the meat on the bottom grill, do we?? Of course not! LOL

Then I put another nut on the bottom of each bolt, screwed it on about 1/2″, then slipped on another washer. Just one this time. Then another nut and tightened it against the lower washer. Did that for each bolt. What I ended up with was a grill that was held up almost 4″ above the bottom washers and adjustable in height using the bottom nuts. I slipped that on top of my grill on my WS and voila!! There it was! My very own GrillTopper (pat. pending! LOL)! Yep, I did 2 of them, one for each grill. 🙂 🙂

These puppies give me a total cooking area of 617 sq. in. per grill and adjustable height of 1″-4″. That’s a total of 1234 sq. in. of cooking space if/when I use both of the WS grills. Now we’re talking!! That’s enough for 4 slabs of ribs or 4 whole chickens (split in half) or 2 slabs of ribs and 2 whole chickens (split in half) or a couple of small briskets and 2 slabs of ribs or a couple of small briskets and 2 whole chickens (split in half) or 4 whole chickens (split in half) or a ton of chicken leg quarters or enough wings to feed an army or heat buns on the GrillTopper and burgers and hot dogs underneath or garlic bread on the topper and anything else underneath or…………..ok, you get the idea. 🙂

And I spent a whopping $14.50 for the parts to make my GrillToppers. WOOHOO!

Finally, if I want to use only one of my WS grills, I can put on the rotisserie extender (with or without the rotisserie?? Hmm, gonna have to check.) and stack the 2nd GrillTopper onto the 1st GrillTopper and have 3 surfaces to cook on. That’d be great for smoking stuff only, because I don’t know if the heat would circulate enough. Hmmmm, sounds like I’ll have to experiment a bit. Darn the luck!! LOLOL

Sweetie and I went over to a friend’s place on Saturday evening. He was having a little get-together and was going to do burgers and hot dogs. When it was time to get started, he brought out a frozen package of pre-prepared hamburger patties…..the name is kinda like what you’d call a “good ol’ boy” and can be found at Wallyworld…sprinkled them with some generic off-the-shelf grill seasoning (remember, they are still frozen!), fired up his gas grill (yep, gas NOT charcoal!), let it go for about 5 minutes, then put the burgers on, still frozen. He closed the top, gave it about 8 or 9 minutes, took a peek at them, waited until the juice started flowing out of the top, then turned them over. About this time, he put on some hot dogs fresh from the ice box on the cold side of the grill. After the burgers started oozing juice on the second side, he waited until the juice turned mostly clear, put on the buns to warm for a whopping 3 minutes, turned the hot dogs once, then took everything off, served burgers and buns, hot dogs and buns, some nice cheese, a slice or 3 of tomato, mayo and mustard, catsup, a little salt and pepper and some relish for the hot dogs. From start to finish, he was done cooking and preparing in about 20 minutes tops! Geez!! Tasty?? Yes indeedy!! Sides were potato chips and potato salad. Sheesh! It was freakin’ DELICIOUS!!!!

I’ve been grinding my own special blend of meats to make my hamburger, then seasoning it up and letting it sit for 24 hours, getting my fire juuuuuuuuuuuust right, doing a reverse sear, warming the buns so they are almost, but not quite, toasted, making some homemade sauce for the burgers, slicing tomatoes, lettuce, onions, using special jalapeno cheese, and serving up the burgers and hot dogs (hot dogs come from the package, let it warm to room temp, turn every 2 minutes for about 20 minutes total cooking time for the hot dogs) with all homemade ‘tater salad, deviled eggs, bbq baked beans, and maybe a nice dessert like my home made pecan pie or lemon meringue pie. It takes me a total of about 2 full days to do it “right”. And it took him 20 minutes. 20 MINUTES!!

I hate to say it, but his burgers and hot dogs were darn near as good as my 2 day prep burgers. 😦 Major wake-up call, though!

Is his way better? It for sure is quicker! Is it easier? Darn tootin’! Will I give it a try? With the exception of using my Weber Silver instead of a gas grill, you’re darn right I’m gonna give it a try! In fact, on the way home, Sweetie and I stopped off and got a couple of packages of the “good ol’ boy” (remember, this is a kind of nickname for the real name since I don’t have permission to use it on my blog) ready to cook burgers!

You know, bbq doesn’t have to be all about steaks and chops and rotisserie cooking and all that fancy stuff. Sometimes, getting back to basics is a nice treat. On Sunday, I decided to do what I consider “Kid Food”…..burgers, hot dogs, beanie weenies and mac n cheese. Needless to say, our 16 yo DS was tickled pink! LOL

I had 1 1/2 lbs ground chuck and 2 packs of hotdogs, one regular bun length and one all beef. The Mac N Cheese was the old faithful, Kraft and the beanie weenies were made with pork and beans, 3 weenies I cooked in an iron skillet and sliced about 1/2 inch thick, some catsup, mustard, grape jelly, salt and pepper, brown sugar all added till it tasted right. 🙂 Yeah, I’m not real big on official measures when I’m cooking.

I got the grill fired up

and then set it up for indirect cooking with the coals against the back of the WS. I cooked the burgers at about 250 for 10 minutes, flipped them and basted with melted butter, cooked another 10 minutes, flipped and basted again and put on the hot dogs. I cooked everybody for another 10 minutes, then took off the burgers, slapped a slice of cheese on 2 of them cuz I like cheeseburgers, finished the hot dogs directly over the coals, moved them back to indirect and started toasting up the buns. It looked like this toward the end:

When all was said and done, the burgers and dogs looked like this:

The buns looked like this:

The Mac N Cheese:

And finally, the beanie weenies:

A burger dressed with lettuce, tomato,onion, mayo and mustard (cheese burger for me), a hot dog with mayo, mustard and catsup, a big spoon of beanie weenies, and a nice helping of Mac N Cheese. Truly, a meal fit for a kid……no matter how old they are! LOL

I’m brand new to blogging, but definitely NOT brand new to bar-b-queing! I’ve been doing it for over 40 years now. During that time, I’ve heard sooooooo many times “Oh, you have to cook over charcoal to call it bar-b-que.” Or “What do you mean you finish up your brisket in the oven? Are you crazy!??” Or “You have to do it the old fashioned way, low and slow.”

But for all you folks out there who have struggled to bbq “the right way” and haven’t had success, then be relieved…..VERY relieved….to know that IMHO, the only hard and fast rule for cooking outstanding bbq is “Do it your way. Whateverworks for you is all you have to know!”

I can hear the sighs of relief already! LOL

Relax, sit back and have a good read or 3. I hope this blog will entertain as well as educate.

Now I don’t claim to be the best barbque guru in the world, k? But Sweetie and Bunny (my wife and 16 yo DS) sure like to scarf mine down. I use charcoal grills, my current favorite being the Weber Silver. A word of advice about the WS! It has TONS of accessories! A rotisserie, a smoker basket, coal holder baskets, a hover grill, temperature controllers, thermometers, and on and on and on! It’ll suck you in and turn a $99 grill into a $500 cooking system before you know it. No, don’t ask how I know! LOL I’ll get to that eventually. 🙂 I also have a very nice offset smoker made by New Braunfels that I like bunches and have got a couple of “hot-rod” mods on. Finally, I’ve got an electric smoker from Cajun Injector for making my Cajun pure pork smoked sausage.